Ready Bytes Blogs

May22

8 Most Important Cost Considerations Before Buying a Shopping Cart Software.

A $99 shopping cart may be cheaper than a free one. Can’t believe it? Discover it yourself

2 years back, I was planning to buy a new car. Based on my
personal preferences of features and budget, I settled for a particular
model of a popular brand. When I went to buy that, I found that the
actual cost including the taxes, accessories, insurance, decor etc was
exceeding my budget. The similar implicit costs are associated with a
software product too.

If you are planning to buy a shopping cart software for your
online business, you should perform a complete feasibility check. You
should also keep in mind the growth of your business in near future. As
your business expands and customer base increases, you may want to add
additional features for better customer service and to target
requirements of varied customers. In that case, you may need more
add-ons or customizations. E.g. you may want to add few more payment
gateways to support your business across the globe.

After checking the technical feasibility of the shopping cart
software, if it suits your business requirements, plan to dig deeper to
explore other aspects. In addition to the cost of product, there may
ahttps://www.hikashop.com/download.hlso be few other costs that would incur when you use this product in
your business. Be sure to check those before making a final decision.
Otherwise, you may end up with a low cost product which is not actually
low; has higher operating cost and hence, proves to be an expensive
affair.

In this blog, I am putting together some of the significant cost
factors which you should consider before buying a shopping cart
software for your online store -

Cost of Product - Consider the cost of
product with taxes, and other charges along with the duration of
subscription. The cost of currency conversion and other fee should
also be checked if the product is not offered in your own currency.

Cost of Payment Gateways - Do check the
payment gateways which are integrated with the shopping cart. Are they
offered along with the base product or do they cost extra bucks?
Initially you may choose a shopping cart which provides integration
with a payment plugin you want (either free or paid), but as your
business grows, you may need integration with other popular payment
gateways or want to provide other payment options for users of
different countries. In that case, you’ll have to pay additional
charges if it is not free.

Cost of Shipping Methods - Is the cost of
shipping methods already included in the base cost of shopping cart?
If not, then how much additional cost would that be to add a new
shipping provider. Seek clarification for these questions from product
provider.

Cost of Add-ons - Do not forget to check if
you would need any additional plugins for the shopping cart software
to perform the required business operations and how much would that
cost.

Cost of Themes - You may have to use some
themes to customize the shopping cart extension to integrate it with
your existing website and provide a seamless rich user experience to
your customers. Check if there are any themes available with the
product and is that included in the product cost. Also, explore if the
theme of your choice can be used with the shopping cart extension and
take its cost into account too.

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Cost of Support - Support of a software
product is a very important aspect to consider in your buying
decision. Starting from the initial product setup, support plays a
vital role in product customization, issue resolution, new component
development & integration, future upgrades and feature enhancements.
You should consider the quality and terms of support for the product
along with the cost of support.

Cost of Training/Documentation - Explore the
documentation of product to identify if that provides complete
information to use it. Check the cost of additional training and
documentation if you may have to provide it to your team to use the
product.

Cost of Removing Backlinks - You may need to
remove backlinks added by the shopping cart software. So check if the
software adds backlinks (Powered By, Copyright text etc) and will
charge additional cost for removing it.

Disclaimer : The information is put into this
table as found on the respective website of a product as on
21-May-2015. If the information on respective website changes later,
this table may contain obsolete data. Please check the respective
product’s website for latest information.

What may seem like a cheaper product, may not actually be cheap to use.
If you only consider the product cost shown in the pricing plan and do
not consider the overall cost of using it for your business operations,
you may not be able to make a right decision. Plan to invest in such a
product which is capable to meet the futuristic requirements of your
business with low operating cost. PayCart from the house of Ready
Bytes is one such product which lets you use your core business skills
to expand your business and handles all technical details on its own
and is easy on your budget :)